Top 62 Quotes & Sayings by Cameron Crowe

Some of the hip-hop stuff people get into is exciting, because there's a passion and there's something to explain to a more mainstream audience, so you get these passionate writers who want to express their love for rap and hip-hop, which is cool.

I mean, Internet radio, which is basically a guy with his iTunes putting it over the computer, is the only way you're going to get true eclectic music programmed.

People are going to go where they get characters that they remember.

I try and direct environmentally, so that people don't feel like everything is going to depend on what happens when someone says, 'action,' so that they can literally be swimming in the warm water, and at some point the race begins, and at some point the race ends, but it is about being free to swim.

I think there's always satisfaction that comes from digging in and telling a story and being on the front line and writing about it. I think there's a venue available if you look. Even print journalism is in good shape in areas.

I have my problems with 'Singles'. To me, 'Singles' is the least successful of the movies I've been lucky enough to make.

I've been out doing signings and talking to a lot of people, and I'm just really grateful.

I think sometimes good sentimentality is fun when it's balanced.

Making a big Hollywood film that really affects people is as hard as making a small movie on a credit card.

It's more like can I build a group of characters and can I tell some universal truths that feel real and aren't formulaic in the spirit of filmmakers gone by who've told American stories that were personal and universal as well.

In the future, everybody is going to be a director. Somebody's got to live a real life so we have something to make a movie about.

Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist.

Great music is its own movie, already. And the challenge, as a music fan, is to keep the song as powerful as it wants to be, to not tamper with it and to somehow give it a home.

I'm proudest of the fact that I've been able to make a few movies in the studio system that are slightly unorthodox and personal. But it's never quite as easy as you dream that it could be.

I don't think people are ever going to a place where they're like, 'I'm over stories about character and love.'

I always wanted to tell the story of how Pearl Jam is the story of lightning striking twice. As well as being the flipside of the classic rock tale where great promise ends in tragedy. This is where tragedy begins great promise.

Well it kind of is project to project because as a writer I think you always write to some degree about things that you know or things that happened - but my favourite filmmakers, my favourite movies of theirs tend to be the personal movies.

I always loved movies, but I never thought I would presume to be a screenwriter and definitely not a director.

I love actors.

Stars arrive on their own timetable.

And I liked that whole idea that energy comes from not disseminating your ideas and talking about them.

I'm always writing. A friend of mine once said, 'You avoid re-writing by writing.' Which is kind of a good point, because re-writing seems to be mostly about craft, and writing is just, like, getting out your passion on a piece of paper.

Time puts things in proper perspective.

'Elizabethtown' was a movie made for all the right reasons, and people who connect with the movie really connect to it. It's not the biggest group of people ever, but I still really believe in 'Elizabethtown.' It wasn't, like, a savage blow.

People dance and we have a lot of music and... this might be the closet I get for a while.

Be positive, be positive. It's rough out there, but don't succumb. Don't succumb to the cynicism in the world.

That's how I am as a director - if somebody does a really good take, I can't help it, I'm not even aware of it. Actors really, really need positive reinforcement.

The current state of music journalism is not bad, but it's not great at all. Some of the hip-hop stuff people get into is exciting, because there's a passion and there's something to explain to a more mainstream audience, so you get these passionate writers who want to express their love for rap and hip-hop, which is cool. But there are too many magazines, and the access has been diminished, so the quality of profiles has gone way down. Internet stuff can be really good, though. I like the dialogue between fans on the Internet. I think that's the best rock writing that's going on right now.

Sometimes things you write are messages to yourself. Even though I think my stuff has a particular voice because you are who you are, it's good to switch it up, professionally and personally. The dare to be great situation is always going to be the one that matters the most.

Many people don't have an outlet for their feelings or how they can express life and not everybody in a relationship is the kind of person who wants to. But if you can write, you can find a good way to do it.

The battered idealist. It's just my favorite character ... To me, a hero is somebody who is able to accept the environment of the world, deal with the stuff that's thrown in their path ... and somehow keep their heart.

Hey, I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success.

I always tell the girls never take it seriously, if you never take it seriously you never get hurt, if you never get hurt you always have fun, and if you ever get lonely just go to the record store and visit your friends.

I wanted to follow the path of music and feel that power, and I couldn't turn back.

Optimism is a revolutionary act

My dream is to do exactly what I'm doing. I love writing and directing, and being somebody that can write about an artist I love or make a film about it. That's great. I would leave the other stuff to those who do it much better.

Take it from your own life, write what you believe in.

If you try to write something that's memorable, you'll never get it. Sometimes it's the way the actor says the words that make it memorable.

TORONTO -- When Cameron Crowe was flying to the Toronto film festival recently, he walked down the aisle of the plane and studied his fellow passengers sitting in front of their personal TV sets. They were just having the greatest time, there was so much joy in their eyes, .. And I looked to see what they were watching. And it was all out-and-out comedies. So many people watching The Longest Yard. And I just got the feeling that, 'You know what? People just like to let it all go, and have a laugh'.

You just never know if people out there will relate to things when you write them; it matters to you, and to some people it doesn't. Some people are 'I'm not in the mood for that; thanks.'

I always loved movies, but I never thought I would presume to be a screenwriter and definitely not a director. I spent a lot of time for no money trying to teach myself how to write a script. It always felt like everybody was looking the other way and sneaking that script through the system, but it did well later on video and got another chance.

So many of us are hungry for stories with more racial diversity, more truth in representation, and I am anxious to help tell those stories in the future.

Conception of a film starts with the music. Always. I hear the movie before I can ever write it. I would say that 80% of the time, that's the successful stuff. It's the other stuff I have to work for to get right, and sometimes it doesn't work out, but the music is always the beginning. So I'm still a music journalist.

I always loved song writers who wrote songs in the first person, so it's kind of like that.

What you believe one day isn't what you believe the next day and I think every writer secretly believes that they may never be able to do write good song or script again, but they can.

I used to see a lot of cocaine. There were journalists who used cocaine and didn't write about it and I didn't write about it. I would never do drugs, so I would always get the same response from people: "Smart kid, more for me." Whether it was a joke or sincere or both, but I was just happy not to be in there partying with the band like some of these other journalists.

I remember that, before John Lennon died, everyone was saying that Rolling Stone couldn't do good reporting anymore. But when he died, they wrote this amazing issue, as they should have about Lennon. They did that when Elvis died, too.

The power of music is still with me, every day. It's one of the most inspiring things available in the world. I write with music. I write scenes in movies that hopefully can earn the use of some songs that are powerful to me. But, I think it just came from being affected by strong, personal art.

Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.

When you listen to the music, you can also see the film or read the article, and it's all part of the same journey that you get to take with the artist you're interested in. It's a balancing act.

The future isn't just something that happens. It's a brutal force, with a great sense of humor, that'll steamroll you if you're not watching.

I wanted to make a comment on the obsession with success and failure that we see a lot in America.

I try and direct environmentally . So that people don't feel like everything is going to depend on what happens when someone says, 'Action'. So that they can literally be swimming in the warm water and at some point the race begins, and at some point the race ends, but it is about being free to swim.

I have heard your words and your disappointment, and I offer you a heart-felt apology to all who felt this was an odd or misguided casting choice.

I write with music. I write scenes in movies that hopefully can earn the use of some songs that are powerful to me.

There's several ways to be a journalist. One way is to be combative and take the person to task and what you have is a portrait of somebody defending themselves, which is interesting. The other thing is to slip into their world and really be a representative for all the people that love the experience of that artist, and have them get so comfortable that you become invisible and they're themselves.

I just love when a movie takes a break and gives you a poetic moment, but sometimes it's good when they just happen randomly. If your actors are really comfortable and you let the camera roll, sometimes things happen and you just see something that's visually iconic, or emotionally that way.

The power of music is still with me, every day. It's one of the most inspiring things available in the world.

I'm impossible to forget, but I'm hard to remember.

You will never know the exquisite pain of the guy who goes home alone. Cause without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain't as sweet.